


Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast

by Ladycat



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Fluff, Silly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-12
Updated: 2014-02-12
Packaged: 2018-01-12 03:09:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1181193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ladycat/pseuds/Ladycat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I know everything! Well, almost everything, but almost everything about almost everything, except medicine isn't everything, it's voodoo and shouldn't you be able to do this yourself? Women have been doing this since the dawn of forever, you don't need me!"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast

"This is _completely unsanitary!_ " Rodney's shriek was harmonized and then surpassed by another's cry. He looked down at the sweating, convulsing woman beside him, hands fluttering over an abdomen that _moved_ , the skin _writhing_ as something small and ugly and annoying inside tried to get itself out. "I -- I don't know what to do. I have _no idea_ what to do, and do you know how incredibly painful that statement is? I know everything! Well, almost everything, but almost everything _about_ almost everything, except medicine isn't _everything_ , it's _voodoo_ and shouldn't you be able to do this yourself? Women have been doing this since the dawn of forever, you don't need me!"

The only problem was, of course, that no matter how Rodney dismissed the softer sciences like medicine or history, he had read enough of both to know that child-birth, while natural, was incredibly dangerous to both woman and infant. That he was in a hut with a _dirt floor_ , contemplating tool that made him want to cross his legs in sheer terror, while the rest of his team did something else totally unimportant, abandoning him with a local woman -- Seritha -- who'd gone into labor not twenty minutes after they left --

Well, the prognosis wasn't all that good.

Seritha cried out again, the agonized whimper at the end more horrifying than any of her shouts. Her face was flushed bright red, streaked with sweat and tears and if it hadn't been _disgusting_ to touch, then Rodney would've wiped some of the wetness away. Maybe. Who knew what diseases a pregnant woman spewing wetness that could've been blood, but probably wasn't, had? Oh, god, they could be _communicable_ diseases! Just touching her was putting Rodney at risk!

Except. Except Seritha had finally opened her eyes and was looking at him. Rodney knew that look, he'd seen it directed his way by just about every female he'd ever met: a curious combination of exasperation and sympathy and _pity_. It wasn't "you poor, stupid male". That normally was accompanied by a slap and a shouted comment to stop staring at breasts. This was something older, more deeply feminine, with shades of the anthropomorphic Mother Earth Rodney didn't believe in shaming the very core of him precisely because it _wasn't_ insulting.

It just _was_. As fundamental as all the laws of physics Rodney wrapped around him like a prayer shawl, their whispered words the only amens he'd ever need.

Women gave birth with or without anyone to help them. But the helping would be really appreciated.

"Right," he snapped. "Okay. I can do anything, and that means I can even do _this_." He very manfully did not add an 'ew', hands waving to encompass both Seritha and the stained material she lay upon. "Do you have _any_ idea of what to do?"

Seritha nodded, stomach rippling through the opening of her dress. When she could speak, she gasped out what instructions she could. "My last birth was easy," she ended with a low moan.

"Yes, well, if this is easy, I'm going to eat a lemon."

Having something to do helped. It wasn't much, but even just finding the clean cloths and bowls of water -- one warm, one cold, one soapy, and one empty just in case Rodney lost his lunch, again -- helped calm him down. He started remembering things, like the weird way Jeanie would practice breathing until he yelled at her to go hyperventilate or have an orgasm or _whatever_ that freakishness was outside of his office, dammit. And the diagrams she'd showed him, mostly of animals because showing him humans had Rodney telling her to get out again, just get out, he didn't _care_ that he was her brother and she had to tell _someone_.

Especially since her bastard of a husband was off fucking half her friends.

"Fun, fun times," Rodney heard himself mutter. Seritha looked a question to him but he shook his head. "Never mind. It's not important, none of this is important, and I am going to kill Carson when we finally get back. I am a _scientist_. The only innards I deal with have _wires_ and _metal parts_ and are not _covered in blood_ and -- "

"Rodney!"

"Yes yes," he muttered, head down as he timed the contractions -- math, math was good -- and found himself piecing together random bits of information that totaled into something he could understand. If she breathed like _that_ then she should push like _this_. "Okay, that's -- that's, um. Good. Yes. If I tell you that you're doing good, that you're a good -- "

"I'll kick you in the face if you finish that."

Rodney had become familiar with terror. It didn't have the same hold on him as before. A sweaty, panting woman who couldn't _actually_ move, however, retaught him some new meanings right there. Jesus. "Right! Right. So, um. Let's just work on our breathing."

They found a rhythm, eventually. It probably wasn't a very effective one, and Rodney was still going to absolutely _murder_ everyone he could find in retaliation for leaving him with the pregnant woman, who cared that they were off searching in deep, dark, perilous caves for something Teyla was interested in that held absolutely no value as far as Rodney was concerned.

But the litany of death threats and the imprecations to push were working.

"Oh, god, I see the baby's head!"

"Thank the _Ancestors!"_

"Oh, yes, that's nice. Here I am, doing my best at something I am totally unsuited for, and you can't even thank _me?"_

Seritha didn't answer. She was too busy pushing and, really, Rodney wouldn't have heard her, because suddenly there was a round, disgustingly warm _thing_ in his hands, moving weakly and silently and Rodney's brain turned off.

That turned out to be a good thing, he decided twenty minutes later when it came back on line. The baby in his hands was crying lustily, somehow cleaner -- although still freakishly red -- the cord to its little belly cut.

"Wow," he told the screaming baby. "I have _instincts_." Who the hell would've guessed that?

Cleaning up Seritha was a process Rodney wished desperately he could black out from also, and the afterbirth was -- oh, god, not even worth mentioning. But it happened, somehow, Seritha taking his half-babbling, half-insulting words with the equanimity of a woman who knew how entirely silly Rodney was acting.

He could live with that, actually.

When the others arrived, Rodney was holding the baby and smiling smugly. "Colonel Sheppard. Under no circumstances are you _ever_ allowed to get pregnant because I am _never ever on pain of Wraith doing that ever again_."

Three very comical blinks met Rodney's pronouncement. He figured that was okay, since he'd had hours of time to come to terms with this, and he was pretty sure they weren't thinking anything but _baby_. For a very brief second he though that maybe John might be upset at being outed in this manner, but the likelihood of Teyla and Ronon _not_ knowing were slim and where the hell was Seritha anyway? He was only supposed to hold the baby for show.

"Uh," Sheppard said eloquently. "Don't really think that's an issue, McKay."

"Yes, well, Pegasus galaxy. You never know. I figured giving notice now would remind you that I will _leave you_ if you should even attempt it."

Oh, thank god, finally, Rodney thought and hoped he didn't say aloud when Seritha finally returned. She looked tired and weak, face washed to pale nothing, but she glowed as she took her baby back. Her husband had gone to faint in their bedroom, or something. "We are naming her Rodnia," she said.

Rodney beamed. Score! He got the baby named for him!

"And, Colonel Sheppard, if you should happen to become pregnant, Doctor McKay makes a very decent midwife."

"I -- well, of course I do." He straightened, privately not sure if this was a good thing to be proud of or not. "I am a genius after all."

Seritha smiled at him in that kind, benevolent way all women had right before they were incredibly cruel. Seating herself while the baby began to noisily drink, she looked over to Sheppard again. "Just be prepared to hit him when he becomes too agitated."

"You did that _on purpose?"_ Rodney shrieked, rubbing the arm he'd very graciously not mentioned she was repeatedly hitting or kicking since, well. Pregnant. "You are very evil," he told her.

God, he hated women, since Teyla _and_ Seritha were smiling and exchanging quiet comments. And Sheppard, who was laughing at him, the bastard, and promising Seritha that he knew the best ways to hit Rodney, and Rodnia was really a stupid name and all of this just _wasn't fair._

Much, much later, after the entire base had a good laugh, Sheppard made Rodney wash his hands an extra four billion times before allowing him in bed. "You delivered a baby, Rodney."

"Yes, I did. It was horrible and I hate you for abandoning me to that."

"Rodney. You delivered a _baby_."

It hit him, then. This wasn't the kind of miracle he pulled out of his ass on a regular basis, full of numbers and beautifully devised math problems that were held together mostly with bubblegum and spit, but _working_ and therefore beautiful. This wasn't making a machine purr to life, or stop, or any of the other things Rodney normally did.

He'd delivered a baby. He'd held that baby, red and wrinkling and screaming louder than a thing that tiny should be able to. A little person, who'd one day grow up to be a big person. Hopefully a little smarter than most, given Rodney's influence at a very, very early age. But even if she didn't, she was still ugly and perfect and Rodney's hands tingled where her warmth had been.

"Oh, my god. I delivered a baby."

"Yup. And hey, at least you didn't -- "

"I have had a very, spectacularly bad day, John, so don't you -- "

"Pass out," John finished, smirking down at him. He leaned forward before Rodney could say anything else, gifting him with a kiss that was long and slow and thrummed the same way that tiny, fluttering heartbeat had. "Pretty cool, McKay."

Rodney rolled his eyes. "Of _course_ I am." But he smiled as he tucked his face into John's neck, and nodded when John promised they'd go visit her in a few weeks. After all. She had a hell of a name to live up to.


End file.
